Water Authority demands that KAFB clean jet fuel spill now

The Albuquerque Bernalillo County Water Utility Authority on Monday demanded that the U.S. Air Force take immediate steps to clean up a jet fuel spill on Kirtland Air Force Base that threatens the city’s underground drinking water supply, and it put the Air Force on notice that it will not allow jet fuel to enter the water supply.

“The Water Authority’s Position [is] that ethylene dibromide at any detectable level will not be allowed to enter the potable drinking water system,” said a resolution that the Water Authority released at a news conference Monday in Albuquerque’s Southeast Heights near a drinking-water well the agency said is threatened with contamination by the spill. The resolution is expected to be approved by the Water Authority’s board when it meets June 18, the agency said in a news release.

The resolution demands that KAFB “immediately develop and implement an appropriate remediation plan that prevents further migration of the dissolved phase of EDB (ethylene dibromide) plume and continue to monitor the location of the plume and install additional monitoring wells to track the movement if it continues towards the Water Utility’s water supply wells.”

It has been estimated that over the years, between eight million to 24 million gallons of jet fuel leaded from storage tanks at KAFB. Those leaks have created plumes of contamination that range from 6,500 feet long to 1,500 feet wide. Water Utility officials have feared that the plume is migrating and could eventually reach some of its drinking water wells.

“We want the U.S. Air Force and Kirtland Air Force Base to act now,” said Water Authority Board Member and Bernalillo County Commissioner Debbie O’Malley. “No more delays, no more conceptual plans that turn out to be unacceptable. The burden of remediation is theirs, and it is their financial, ethical, legal and moral duty to make sure our community’s drinking water is safe. We will not accept anything less.”

Water Authority Board Vice-Chair and Bernalillo County Commissioner Maggie Hart-Stebbins said the Water Authority is “taking this action now because we share the New Mexico Environment Department’s concern about any plan that allows the EDB contamination to migrate in the aquifer and reach our production wells.”

“We are very concerned because research has shown that the plume is actually moving in the direction of our well field to the north, away from the KAFB production well that was proposed for containment as part of Kirtland Air Force Base’s interim measure to contain the plume,” O’Malley added.

The Water Authority said that although it has not detected any jet fuel in its monitoring sites or wells, “data has shown that the dissolved phase plume of EDB is located less than 4,000 feet from the nearest production well.”

The spill at Kirtland’s Bulk Fuels Facility was first detected in 1999. Since then, the Air Force has been working with the New Mexico Environment Department and others to identify the full scope of the leak and to conduct interim remediation measures, Kirtland said on its website. A final recommendation on how to clean the spill is expected in September, Kirtland’s website said.